We investigate the ionospheric response to the 21 June 2020 annular solar eclipse using the multiinstrument observations including ionosondes, Global Navigation Satellite System (GNNS) receivers, COSMIC2, and DMSP and SWARM satellites. During the course of the eclipse, total electron content (TEC) decreased slightly in the morning at 20–70°E and largely in the afternoon at 80–150°E. However, maximum TEC depletion did not occur at the maximum obscuration, but stayed close to the southern edge of the running totality during the eclipse and near the northern edge of the elapsed totality after the eclipse. NmF2 showed the similar variation as TEC around 110°E. Meanwhile, a northward disturbance field‐aligned plasma drift was observed in the eclipse region and the disturbance became strong in the southern side of the totality around 120°E. The TEC and Swarm data revealed that the crests of the equatorial ionization anomaly (EIA) enhanced on both sides of the equator around noon in ~50–100°E although the northern crest was still in the Moon's shadow. The COSMIC2 profiles displayed the enhanced electron density in ~300–500 km altitudes and decreased density below ~300 km altitudes around the EIA crests in ~70°E. The Swarm observations recorded a drop in the electron temperature both in eclipse region and in conjugate hemisphere in 77°E and 96°E. The combined effect from the electric field, neutral wind, thermal conduction, and interhemispheric photoelectron transport might result in the complicated space and time variations of ionospheric responses to the eclipse.

Driven by the objective of earthquake disaster prevention and mitigation, China launched the Zhangheng mission to build a stereoscopic earthquake monitoring system from the lithosphere to space. This report briefly presents the possible seismic ionospheric disturbances recorded by the first probe of the Zhangheng mission, which is known as the China-Seismo-Electromagnetic Satellite (CSES). The routine data preprocessing and seismo-ionospheric information analysis methods are briefly introduced. The possible seismo-ionospheric disturbances that appeared during the strong shallow earthquakes (with a magnitude over 7 and a depth shallower than 30 km) are analyzed by using CSES and other multi-source data. Investigating seismo-ionospheric mechanisms requires multidisciplinary knowledge involving geophysics, atmosphere/ionosphere physics, geochemistry/atmospheric chemistry, etc. We state that the results from the CSES scientific application center are preliminary, calling for international scientists to contribute to the seismo-ionospheric perturbation phenomena, which is one of the most challenging scientific problems.

The magnitudes of the two crests of equatorial ionization anomaly (EIA) vary with local time. During the solstices, EIA crest in the winter hemisphere is larger than that in the summer hemisphere before noon/early afternoon. Whereafter, the crest in the summer hemisphere becomes intensified, and the stronger EIA crest transits to the summer hemisphere. Using Constellation Observing System for Meteorology, Ionosphere, and Climate ionospheric radio occultation data, we examine the longitudinal and altitudinal variations of this interhemispheric transition in four longitudinal sectors and at seven heights under low/high solar activity conditions. The results show that during the June solstice the transition of the stronger EIA peak from the winter to the summer hemisphere is earlier in the sectors where the geomagnetic equator is further away from the subsolar point and the geomagnetic field declination is larger, while during the December solstice the longitudinal variations generally show the opposite compared with that in the June solstice. The distance between the geomagnetic equator and subsolar point and the geomagnetic field configuration control the upward/downward plasma movements in the summer/winter hemisphere, leading to the different transition times in different longitudinal sectors. For both solstices, transition times emerge earlier as height increases, which is mainly caused by the larger effective scale height in the summer hemisphere than in the winter hemisphere, resulting in a smaller electron density difference at higher altitudes with a fast transition. Solar activity alters the transition time below 320 km, whereas it has no evident effect at higher altitudes.

Scale height measures the altitude gradient of the electron density profile and relates with the ionospheric chemistry and dynamics, while its longitudinal variation has not been fully investigated in both statistical analyses and empirical modelings. In this study, 11‐year electron density profiles from Constellation Observing System for Meteorology, Ionosphere, and Climate radio occultations are collected to retrieve the α‐Chapman scale height (Hm) from the lower topside ionospheric electron density profile (within 200‐km altitudes above the peak height of F2 layer [hmF2]) by fitting α‐Chapman function with a constant scale height. The Hm shows evident longitudinal variations at midlatitudes, and its zonal structure shows a consistency with that of hmF2 during daytime, which indicates neutral winds change the ionospheric height and shape at the same time. Further, a global modeling of Hm named 2PCAFourier‐Hm is built based on a two‐layer Principle Component Analysis combined with Fourier regression analysis of its coefficients under low and moderated solar activity. Longitudinal variation is considered in the Hm's modeling, along with the variations of local time, latitude, day of the year, and solar activity. Overall, the model well captures the temporal and spatial variations of Hm with a root‐mean‐square error of 2.25 km and a correlation coefficient of 0.97 with respect to the Constellation Observing System for Meteorology, Ionosphere, and Climate observations.

The topside ionosphere accounts for a dominant part of the ionospheric total electron content, whereas accurate global modeling of topside ionospheric electron density (Ne) profile has not been fully achieved. In this study, a high precision Ne profile model, named α‐Chapman Based Electron Density Profile Model (α‐Chapman‐Based‐EDP), was built by using ∼4.5 million Ne profiles from the Constellation Observing System for Meteorology, Ionosphere, and Climate (COSMIC‐1) radio occultations. We first describe each of the profiles using five parameters of the α‐Chapman function, that is, peak density (NmF2) and height (hmF2) of F2 layer, scale height (Hm) as well as its altitude change rates, and then built a model for each of the parameters as a function of latitude, longitude, month, local time, and solar activity, through Empirical orthogonal function (EOF) analysis and Fourier expansion. Combining all the five models, we construct the α‐Chapman‐Based‐EDP. Compared with observations from COSMIC‐1 and ‐2, the model captures the ionospheric climatology well, such as solar activity dependence, seasonal variation, and spatial pattern, including the equatorial ionization anomaly and midlatitude trough as well as their variabilities. Our model can describe nearly 80% variability of Ne in F region. In contrast, the IRI2016 cannot well reproduce these characteristics, with errors higher than our model. The potential applications of our model were also discussed. A dense matrix data calculated by the model will be released in https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Qiaoling_Li5 with the permissions of COSMIC organizations.